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I would appreciate some advice on whether or not to prune a golden chain tree, or what other actions I could take short of that.
I planted two of them last spring from bare root and they have grown pretty well. They are just growing at different rates. They both started out at about 3 - 4' but now the taller one is about 12' and the shorter one around 8'.
I planted one each on either side of the sidewalk going into my yard. The larger and healthier-looking one is near the house and gets less sun than the other. It may also be getting a bit more water given the slope of the yard, but I have been watering the shorter one a couple of times a week and it has not made much if any difference.
I have also fertilized the shorter one with granule-type fertilizer that said it was for trees and shrubs as well as a tree spike pounded into the ground. That has not seemed to make much difference either. The smaller one has a lot fewer leaves and those are a bit yellow. They also yellowed last summer as well, but it came back this spring very healthy and with a lot of leaves. It just seems to not like the sun much (I am in SC in zone 7b or 8a and it is a bit on the warm side).
So the questions are:
1. Can I do anything else for the smaller one to help it along?
2. Will they both max out at about the same size, so I should just not worry about it?
3. Should I do anything to the taller one to prune it back? They are both essentially single leaders with almost no horizontal branches. The taller one was drooping over on the top 5 - 6 feet to almost horizontal, so I had to get a 16' length of pipe to stake it up. I am worried that they might have grown too tall for their diameters (the larger one is about 1" and the shorter one is about 5/8 to 3/4", measured a foot off the ground).
I hate to hack away at the trees without knowing if I should, much less how I should. The uninformed (meaning I am not an expert) thing would seem to be to cut off the top of the taller one to take it back to the same height as the shorter. That would even the two trees up and take care of the too-tall-for-it's-diameter issue.
But would the tree re-establish a central leader? I would guess so given it's very young age?
Thanks in advance for the advice!
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